Takeoffs and Landings
by pseudonymitous
Summary: Starts after 3.15 and goes up to the end of 3.16
1. In An Aeroplane Over The Sea

Auggie Anderson disliked a lot of things (dryer lint, jury duty, Coke Zero), but nothing so much as flying. Specifically, flying to and from Iraq. The first time he'd flown into Iraq, he'd been sick as a dog. Motion sickness, food poisoning, a stomach virus, he didn't know what, but he'd spent the entire time with his head in a paper bag. The last time he'd flown home was a few days after his accident.

Today, he sat in the window seat, headphones on and Mingus cranked up, a mile in the sky with nothing separating him from his thoughts.

He thought about previous flights. The flight to Barcelona with Annie, when he'd gotten her to play I Spy for a full three minutes and forty-two seconds before she'd remembered who she was playing with, and fallen asleep on his shoulder. The flight from Barcelona to Eritrea, when he'd been a bundle of nerves, with Parker's engagement ring burning a hole in his jacket pocket. The flight home after the incident with the pirates, when he'd been so nervous about his relationship status that he'd actually engaged in conversation with the woman in the seat next to him just to get his mind off the events of that trip.

Parker loved airplanes. She always said she couldn't complain about something that allowed people to float in midair without needing wings or having their eyeballs pop out of their heads. She viewed planes as a marvel. A miracle. Auggie mentally added this to the list of reasons they wouldn't have worked out anyway, above "leaves her socks lying around where just anyone can slip on them" and below "dumped my sorry ass." That list had gotten him through some tough times. He guessed it was about 75 items long now, but he couldn't be sure.

Annie, on the other hand, was a vocal lover of travel and hater of airplanes. She always said it was not the getting there that was important and meaningful, it really was the destination, and she didn't like trains or cars or boats any better. She blamed the fact that not even blind people let her take window seats. At the time, Auggie had been sitting in the window seat, and had gestured toward the window. "Look at that!" She'd been so out of it that even after the I Spy thing, she'd looked. That earned him a punch in the arm.

He thought about his Proper Exit Battle Buddy, and the wife who said he was a different man after coming home from war. They were all different men. They all needed help, and friends and lovers and lives after going through what they went through. Auggie had gone through the list in all different orders. He'd started with lovers, then a life, then friends and finally, help. He was happier now than when he was bagging a different woman every night, because, and he meant this with minimal irony, after awhile they all started to look the same to him. He wondered what it would have been like if he hadn't been such a dog before he left for war. He had been this lively, buff, all-American guy before everything, and he didn't settle down. He didn't foresee the incident in Iraq, didn't think Superman would ever have to come home and learn how to be Clark Kent all over again. He wondered if he did have a wife before he left, what she'd think of him after he came back. He was such a bastard back then, she probably wouldn't have stayed. The wives rarely did.

He wondered if he was still a bastard, in his Clark Kent form. He hoped not. He thought about his purple heart. Where it was now. The specific location didn't matter... Maybe what he did was dumb or careless in the opinions of others, but he knew it was where it belonged. He had a feeling he was where he belonged.

He lay his head back and listened to the dulcet tones of Mingus and thought, as he often did, of the people he cared about. One topped the list. He hoped, for a fleeting but fervent moment, that this plane didn't go down on the way back to Dulles, because he never did get to tell her that thing he wanted to tell her in person. And it was time.

Boy, oh boy was it time.


	2. Amsterdamnit

Auggie wondered if he would ever measure up to Eyal. It was weird- he liked Eyal, as he liked anyone who would sacrifice themselves for another agent, anyone who would be that selfless. He wished he could say he liked Eyal the way Annie liked him, but that simply wasn't true. If the sex appeal of a woman could be assessed by how a man spoke to her, the same could be said when the genders were reversed. He heard how women swooned around Eyal, hell, he'd hugged the guy. He knew what he was dealing with.

Most people didn't make Auggie feel useless. The bulk of the time, Auggie was the Wizard of Oz, pulling all the strings, making all the moves, but when it came down to it, he was just a man behind a curtain of technology. Now, he sat in a boat in Amsterdam with Eyal, after one of the most dangerous missions of his life, and he felt like a bump on a log.

"Annie!" Eyal was yelling, but Auggie didn't know what was going on.

He was without any of his technology. He was without much of anything, except the innocent power of 'what is it' and 'what's happening' and he hated that. He'd worked so hard for his independence, and in just a moment, it was gone.

Annie made landing on the boat, and Eyal caught her. He then fired, apparently on her pursuer, making a perfect shot. He was the hero. He saved the day, and he had Annie in his arms.

Auggie gripped his cane, smoldering as the pair flirted and smiled and teased. He was acutely aware of how blind he actually was, and it was tearing him up. Because, clearly, he had no chance. Annie was Eyal's to lose.


	3. A Mile Up

Auggie sat a few inches from Annie. He loved just being near her. It was more than enough for him, but he had this ridiculous urge. It was a static feeling, almost electric, that shot from his core out to his fingertips and feet and left him restless and full of adrenaline. He threatened to explode. He had to do it, had to ask before he lost his nerve. She'd denied Eyal and his place and Israel and while Auggie felt for the guy, he found the plot twist to be loaded with intrigue and possibility.

It was just a drink. Would she like to get a drink? He wanted to ask for more. Because at a certain point, it wasn't about kitten heels or perfume or fuzzy auras, it was about knowing that someone was going to be there for you 100% even when you didn't know which way was up. Even when you dropped the briefcase. He hoped he'd been that for Annie. He wanted to be. He tried to be. He was sure he'd fallen short, but he was there for her if she'd have him, full force, till the bitter end. All she had to do was say yes.

And she did.

When she initially suggested they grab said drink at Allen's, he stopped breathing. Twas fear of the friend zone that sucked the life out of him, but he clung to the hope that she'd agree to somewhere nicer. A real date.

And she did.

He lay back, static adrenaline replaced by euphoria. He could run a million miles and never rack up these kind of endorphins. He slipped on his headphones, praying silently that she wouldn't notice how unbelievably giddy he was.

He had a date.


	4. Two Hands

Annie walked with Auggie to Jai's declassification ceremony. There had been no mention of their date since he'd asked. When they took their seats, he slid his hand down the back of her arm to her wrist, as usual. Annie took that hand in hers, looping her arm through his so both her hands and one of his rested on his right thigh. That wasn't usual at all. Auggie swore he felt a literal spark.

He didn't listen much during the ceremony. His mind was elsewhere, playing back the tapes from the past three years. The first time he met Annie, he was terrified. He'd handled new recruits before. Not all of them were comfortable with him. It was something that he was used to, but that didn't mean it didn't bother him. There was a stigma surrounding people with disabilities in the workplace, it was whatever, but he still bristled at the realization that something as trivial as eyesight could change the whole course of social interaction.

Auggie knew when someone was pretending they weren't uncomfortable, for his sake. Annie Walker wasn't one. She was nervous about work, sure, but she expressed no concern about him. He was almost relieved when she told him she had an important question, because that would mean she was displaying predictable behavior. He had to admit, the headphone question was a curveball.

It was also the first time he knew, way deep down at the very core of his being, that he could trust her. He could trust her explicitly to be herself around him. He could be himself around her. This was rarer, for him, than anyone knew. Reading people into one's involvement with the CIA was often a relationship-ender. It happened all around him. When you added the fact that honesty was hard to come by in the first place, a person like Annie Walker became infinitely special. Endlessly important. He needed her like he never needed anyone else.

He'd almost lost her. He'd almost lost himself. But they'd found their way back and now they were sitting at what was essentially Jai's funeral and it was HIS hand she was holding and it was HIS shoulder she was leaning on and when they got up to leave, he spent the whole cab ride home just missing the way she felt against his arm.

He'd almost lost her when they lost Jai. He realized that and it made him sick and sad and the fact that he could've been wearing black for her that day instead of for Jai was overwhelming. This was passion. This was a thing he needed to grab onto and not on Friday night at 8, but as soon as was humanly possible.

He was going to her house and he was going to tell her how he felt and it wasn't going to be easy, because nothing was ever easy, but telling her was better than living with regret.


End file.
